Soft-Baked Ginger Cookies

An easy recipe for chewy cookies full of warm ginger & molasses. Made healthy with no refined flour or sugar—but you’d never know it!

During October and November, all of the members of my old high school marching band loaded up our instruments, uniforms, and piles of homework onto five big charter buses every Saturday morning. We left the campus by 5 am and returned after midnight to spend the entire day competing in a band review. With a parade in the morning, a field show at night, and occasionally a few orchestra performances during the day, we barely had time to rest!

Championships, our final competition of the season, fell on the Saturday right before Thanksgiving. We spent hours perfecting every note and stride during the preceding week to try to bring home the trophy that stood almost 5’ tall.

As the unofficial head section leader of the flutes during my senior year, I organized little goodie bags to pass out every weekend. I normally chose something small like a homemade muffin and orange juice, but for Championships, the other sections leaders and I went all out.

I invited them, plus two of our really close flute friends, over to my house the Friday afternoon before, and we baked more than a hundred cookies for the section. With at least four different flavors of cookie dough to mix up, we ran out of bowls and used the Tupperware top of a cake carrier to stir together the last batch of chocolate chip!

Because Championships fell so close to Thanksgiving and the holiday season, we all agreed that a spiced cookie was necessary, so we baked gingersnaps. Soft in the middle, crunchy on the outsides, and coated in glittery sugar. They disappeared from everyone’s goodie bags by 7 am, but it took a whole lot more time to flatten them to bake the night before!

These Soft-Baked Ginger Cookies are an even easier and healthier version of those. No need to roll and flatten the dough, and no refined sugar coating. They’re made with entirely wholesome clean-eating ingredients, and they still have that same wintery spicy flavor that you love!

In order to create the iconic flavor of gingerbread loves, gingerbread cookies and gingersnaps, you need two important ingredients: ginger and molasses. Although most people only use molasses during the holiday season for those ginger baked treats, we actually mix it into our homemade whole wheat bread recipes. So good! But anyway, molasses brings a warmth to the cookies that’s absolutely irresistible, so don’t skip it!

Because of the unrefined liquid sweeteners of molasses and honey, this cookie dough is wet… Very wet. When you first mix it up, you’re going to call me crazy. It looks more like thick muffin batter than cookie dough!

So chilling is mandatory! Chilling helps stiffen up the cookie dough so it won’t spread as much while baking. You can also shape the mounds of cookie dough to be taller than they are wide to further prevent spreading and create thicker cookies. Do not flatten these—they’ll turn into one big cookie blob on the baking sheet!

These Soft-Baked Ginger Cookies filled my house with the smells of Christmas, and it actually made my guy walk into the kitchen to ask what I was making. He hates almost all desserts, but… Gingersnaps and gingerbread are his main weaknesses!

So bake a batch of these as fuel for your holiday shopping or as a treat to nibble on while covering gifts in wrapping paper and bows. And I’m sure Santa wouldn’t mind a few of these cookies on Christmas Eve either!

My newly released Healthier Chocolate Treats cookbook is full of sweet and healthy recipes that are perfect for the holiday season! Reserve your copy here before it sells out!

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter, egg, and vanilla. Stir in the molasses and honey. Add in the flour mixture, stirring until incorporated. Chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes, or up to 2 hours. (If chilling longer than 2 hours, cover the cookie dough with plastic wrap.)

Drop the cookie dough into 15 rounded scoops onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake at 325°F for 12-15 minutes. Cool on the pan for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Notes: Chilling the cookie dough helps prevent the cookies from overly spreading on the baking sheet. If baking right after mixing up the dough, the cookies would spread into one big cookie blob on the baking sheet.

If only chilled for 30 minutes, make sure the cookie dough is as tall as it is wide. Do not flatten the cookie dough, or else the cookies will be extremely thin.

I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Lucy! 🙂 Other UK readers have reported that self-raising flours don’t work very well in my recipes, so I’d recommend getting regular wholemeal flour instead. I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cookies if you try them!

I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Cara! If you’re looking for a ginger cookie made with stevia, I actually recommend this recipe of mine instead. That way, you don’t need to make any modifications! 🙂 I’d love to hear what you think if you try them!

Hi Amy,
I just made these cookies!
Thanks for suggesting these (I was originally going to make the cookie cutter ones but didn’t want to use the Stevia and did want to use molasses – so You sent me to this link). I followed the recipe exactly although I made 31 smaller cookies. 12 min in the oven per batch. They are delicious. Perfect taste and texture!!!
Also, with the conversion to grams from mL, in case others want to know – it’s 80g of molasses, and 105g of honey.

I really appreciate your interest in my recipe Jane! You’re correct that people who cannot have cane sugar shouldn’t have molasses. However, molasses is still considered an unrefined sweetener. Refined sugar is considered a sweetener that has been stripped of all micronutrients, and molasses still contains those. 🙂 I have plenty of refined sugar free recipes here that don’t contain molasses — perhaps those will be better suited for your diet!

Firsty please may send the biggst of thank you’s to you for the most wonderful cranberry cake recipe, my daughter loved them so very much, and it tasted just like (but better) the cranberry cake she used to enjoy as a child, it brought so much joy and happy memories back,
But most importantly gave Issi the joy of being able to eat cake again, we used quail eggs in place of the butter and it worked wonderfully, there is alwats some in the freezer now to munch on,

Please coukd ssk a kindness from you, my daughters condition has got mych worse, and ginger buscuits really seem to help, (and give a variety from plain oatmeal or your lovely cranberry bread which is Issi can tolerate now)
Issi loves to dip them in tea (very english thing!) we had some that found by a german company that doesnt have any fat in them, the recipe simply states
Gingerbread (brown sugar syrup, wheat flour, rye flour, spices, raising agent (ammonium hydrogen carbonate))

I truly appreciate your interest in my recipes! I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the cranberry cake. That means the world to me! Your daughter is so lucky to have you to make her homemade treats too! Can your daughter tolerant fats of any kind? I typically don’t recommend replacing butter or oil in my cookie recipes because it greatly alters the texture. My cookie recipes, when made without butter or oil, tend to turn out bready rather than soft and chewy. However, if your daughter cannot tolerate any sort of butter/oil/fat source, then you can replace the butter or oil with your preferred type of milk. Just remember that the cookies texture will be very different! 🙂 I’d love to hear what you think if you decide to try that with either my ultimate healthy gingerbread cookies or sugar cookies!

The Healthier Chocolate Treats cookbook is perfect for any and all chocolate lovers. Whether you enjoy chocolate occasionally or every single day (that’d be me!), there are plenty of goodies inside for you!
Healthier Chocolate Treats contains 50+ brand new healthier recipes. These recipes have never been seen before or appeared on my blog. You won’t find them anywhere else!
And yes—every single one contains some form of chocolate. Whether you prefer milk, dark or white, there are lots of treats inside for you!
What Inspired You to Write Healthier Chocolate Treats?
I have always loved chocolate. Every Halloween throughout my childhood, I inverted the entire contents of my bright … Read More

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